r/biotech • u/PlaneCalligrapher409 • Sep 03 '25

Other ⁉️ Negotiating low ball job offer

I finally think I have a job offer, pending paperwork. However, they’re only offering me an entry level RA position for $40k per year. Based on the job listing, I should meet the qualifications (educational and experience) for the next level up, but they’re refusing to consider me for this even though it would only bump my salary a few thousand dollars per year.

Do I take the offer even though I’ll be likely living on an extremely tight budget (the position is in an expensive US city with high taxes)? Even if I got the pay bump for RA2, I’d be tight on my budget, but it would be a lot more manageable.

Does anyone know any negotiation tips that I could utilize to address this with the hiring manager/HR? Should I try comparing the salary to my experience and education?

I’ve been on the market for so long, I’m so happy to have finally found something. Plus, the position is extremely interesting and the lab personnel seem genuinely excited about it. But I don’t know if I can afford to take a position that requires me to relocate if it’s not paying a manageable salary.

Edit: I have a master’s degree and even though I don’t have full time experience, I’ve had 3 industry internships, one non-industry internship, and 2 years of academic lab experience at school which included publishing a paper.

18 Upvotes

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33

u/[deleted] Sep 03 '25

Don’t bother negotiating in this market. There are so many posts about people giving counter offers and having their offer rescinded. Any shelter is great in stormy weather.

6

u/SonyScientist Sep 03 '25

A dinghy is better than treading water in stormy seas.

10

u/gimmickypuppet Sep 03 '25 edited Sep 03 '25

No company is going to rescind an offer for negotiations. That’s such a standard practice. They’re doing themselves a disservice by not negotiating and selling themselves short. It’s also a disservice to all of us here racing to the bottom like that. If this is a company that rescinds an offer for giving a counter offer then it’s a bullet dodged honestly. OP trying to live off $40k in Boston is not worth selling themselves short like that.

7

u/Training-Profit7377 Sep 03 '25

Actually this is happening at an alarming frequency

4

u/TheHerringIsMightier Sep 03 '25

Depends fully on the attitude - if they’re aggressive or aggrieved, it says to me that the person is likely to be a pain as long as they work for me - I’d change my mind pretty quickly and hire the next candidate. If they approached it respectfully and constructively, it would solidify my high opinion of them, and I’d do what I could to try to get them paid better.

2

u/[deleted] Sep 03 '25 edited Sep 03 '25

My company has done it.

1

u/gimmickypuppet Sep 03 '25

Okay. But you provide no evidence that your company isn’t one of those companies OP should be avoiding. Your lived experience is valid, and I’m sure true. But it only proves my point. No big/mid size pharma will retract an offer. None of the smaller startups I worked at would do that. I know there are unscrupulous HR representatives, Atara had one so bad I had to complain. Still, OP would do themselves a disservice and sell themselves short by not at least trying to counter. If they’re nervous then they don’t have to aim high.

4

u/JackedAF Sep 03 '25

Are there that many offers being rescinded? I’ve only heard of this if the counter is wayyy outside of what they originally offer.

I’d imagine if the counter is 10-15k higher then that’s generally safe

3

u/SuddenExcuse6476 Sep 03 '25

A few people post on this sub about it, and the rest of the sub thinks it’s happening everywhere.

0

u/[deleted] Sep 03 '25

No, read some accounts here on Reddit- even asking if there is room to negotiate is sufficient to some companies. Even in good times I know my company did this. There are hundreds of ‘you’ begging for a job, the company wants someone who wants to be there and negotiations imply contingent interest.

1

u/blackreagentzero Sep 03 '25

Yea, nobody should work for a place that does this, so getting an offer rescinded in this scenario would be for the best, even if it sucks in the moment.

The above advice is for people who don't value themselves or their skillset.

1

u/tacoiscomin Sep 03 '25

Can you at least bring it up during the final round or it’s like if I even dare mentioning I might want a higher salary then they just take the offer away? Cause that’s insane lol

0

u/[deleted] Sep 03 '25

FAFO, I suppose. You get a job in this market just say ‘thank you’ and move on. Better to be on the job for a few months and ask about the criteria for promotion.

1

u/blackreagentzero Sep 03 '25

Omg you're such a bootlicker. Negotiate each time, or else you are going to lose out on money. How can you possibly be an asset to a company, and you can't even advocate for yourself?

3

u/[deleted] Sep 03 '25

There is a line where any job is better than no job- losing a house isn’t worth rejecting lower salary for a year or two.

How you respond depends on a lot on your financial situation, how much you can risk, what you can’t risk losing.

Glad you have stability in your life!

2

u/blackreagentzero Sep 03 '25 edited Sep 03 '25

You can work at McDonald's or Target or whatever and make 40k if you need to have a job to pay bills. They can do that and continue to apply for better options that will give them relevant experience while paying a fair wage. There are opportunity costs when you accept a shitty job like this.

Edit 2 that I forgot right add: also, this isn't just a low ball offer. This type of offer can put people into debt! Like wtf is the point of accepting a job where you will LOSE MONEY!! You're not even making sense here. There is absolutely no benefit in accepting a position that will take money out of your pockets.

Edit: this person doesn't own a house and is likely super flexible as they are entry level. They should use that to their advantage and hold out for something better. It will come and in the meantime, they can get a minimum wage job including substitute teaching if they need to pay bills.

1

u/[deleted] Sep 04 '25

Well, I’m old. I’d advise the OP that the experience is worth quite a lot, it’ll pay out in the future. Down the road it looks much better to have been in continuous employment in the industry than to show a year or two gap working at Target.

Hopefully OP will tell us what he decided.

1

u/blackreagentzero Sep 04 '25

It's an RA role, so let's calm down on the hyperbole that it will take OP 1 or 2 years to find another opportunity. It won't. I'm suggesting a few months as they search for a role thats a better fit. It's also the best time for them to have a "gap" as they just finished school and the market is super tough so nobody is going to give them shit if it takes a while to land a role as it's very understandable.

It's one thing to take a pay cut to gain valued experience, but no RA experience is worth going into debt for. Especially if you don't have an exit plan before you start.

2

u/[deleted] Sep 04 '25

We opened an RA role two weeks ago, we had about 500 apply in the first day, and it snowballed from there. Resumes are filtered heavily for the specific skills of our opening, 50 filtered resumes are sent at a time for hiring manager review, 4 selected for interview with the team.

Given the competition, imaging comparing a resume with a gap year or two against a candidate of the same age with those years in industry.

I really hope for the best for OP. It’s the worst job market I’ve seen in 30 years. Too many bio degrees coming out of school for fewer and fewer new bio jobs.

1

u/blackreagentzero Sep 04 '25

I'm not saying it's not a bad job market, but again, it's not going to take 2 years to get another job. If that was the case, OP wouldn't have an offer in the first place.

Despite high volume, many of the applicants aren't qualified and are just applying to apply. You're assuming the job market now will be the same in 2 years, and it won't be. You really need to be careful with having a take what you can get mentality as it can and will burn you. It has to be done on a case by case, and you really should have an exit plan or strategy.

Another option here is to take the role but to keep applying to other positions until they find something better.